Method of making laminated metal blanks having a lamination of varying thicknesses



R C. ING

ERSO MINATED MET OF VA Apr RYING TH 11 30, 1

ENTOR.

ORNEY.

L BLANKS HAVING ICKNESSES Patented Feb. 8, 1938 I v MTHOD OF BLANKS HAVING PATENT OFFICE MAKING LAMINATED METAL A LAMINATION OF VARYING THICKNESSES Roy 0. Ingersoll, Chicago llL, assignor to Borg- Warner Corporation, Chicago, 111., a corporation of Illinois Application April 30, 1936, Serial No. 'l7,090

13 Claims.

This invention has to-do with a process of making a laminated metal blank having a lamination'of different thicknesses and relates particularly to an improved process whereby the various thicknesses are obtained.

Heretofore laminated metal'blanks have been made by placing a slab commonly called an insert of selected metal within an ingot mold and pouring molten'metal of different characteristics about the slab or insert. After the molten metal solidifies, the resulting ingot is taken from the mold and rolled upon its opposite sides lying in parallelism with the slab.

In the preparation of laminated blanks from which are formed mold-boards for agricultural plows, the insert is ordinarily of mild steel while the metal poured thereabout is of a harder steel higher in carbon content. Such a combination of steels is chosen so that the stock from which the plow mold-board is formed will have a hard wear-resisting surface reinforced by a relatively tough base metal. When a plow is in use, greater .wear occurs upon that suface portion of the mold-board disposed toward the lower leadin edge. It is natural, therefore, that the hard surface lamination should first wear away upon such portion of the mold-board, while the surface portion in the vicinity of the trailing upper edge remains substantially unwom; Thus impaired A common expedient of extending the wearing period of mold-boards has been to reinforce that surface section normally receiving the most wear by welding thereonto a shim of hard steel for increasing the thickness.

As a means of increasing'the wearing period of a mold-board without increasing its weight or over-all thickness, it has been proposed to fabricate the laminated stock so that the center lamination will be of normal thickness at one edge and taper off so as to be thinner at the opposite edge. In such ablank of uniform over-all thickness, one of the outer laminations of hard metal may be much thicker. When the blank is made into a mold-board the relatively thick surface section of the one lamination is arranged adjacent to the lower leading edge.

The normal manner of making laminated stock having a tapered center section is to place a 50 tapered insert into a standard ingot mold rectangular in horizontal section, then form a laminated ingot by casting molten metal on opposite sides of the insert, and thereafter roll the ingot in the conventional manner. Such a 55 process has a great disadvantage because of the the mold-board loses much of its original utility.

fact that the tapered insert must be preformed by a collateral process such as forging.

An object of the present invention is the provision of an improved ingot process of making a laminated metal blank having a lamination of 5 varied thickness formed of an ingot section of substantially uniform thickness.

Another object of the present invention is the provision of a new process of making laminated metal blanks having a tapered interior lamination and including the step of forming an ingot trapezoidal in horizontal section.

These and other desirable objects will become apparent upon reading the following description in conjunction with the single sheet of drawing hereby made a part of the specification, and wherein:

Fig. 1 is a horizontal sectional view through an ingot mold and ingot formed pursuant to carrying out the steps of the present process; and

Fig. 2' is a fragmentary side elevation of a laminated metal blank rolled from the ingot shown in Fig. 1.

The same reference characters are used for designating similar parts shown in the drawing and described hereinafter.

Referring first to Fig. 1, there will be seen an ingot mold Ill having a side wall II and a side wall I! opposed to the wall I l and arranged angularly thereto. In carrying out my improved process, I first place a slab or insert I3 of uniform thickness within the mold ill in substantial parallelism with the side wall H. The insert I3 is selected of such a length as to reach nearly the full distance between side walls [4 and l.5,of the mold II). In the present instance, the insert I3 is positioned within the mold so that the perpendicular distance between the insert l3 and the left end of side wall I! is equal .to the similarly measured distance between such insert and the left end of the side wall II. The present insert I3 is of a thickness throughout equal to the distance between the opposite sides thereof at its leftend and the respective opposed side walls II and I2.

Subsequent to placing the insert 13 into the mold in some such manner as described, molten metal 16 is poured into the mold. Upon the molten metal solidifying, it will form laminations l1 and I8 upon the two sides of the insert I3, which forms a third lamination of the resulting ingot. When my improved process is used for making laminated blanks from which are formed mold-boards for agricultural plows, the insert l3 will be mild steel, whereas the-poured metal will QA slight space is left between each end of the insert l3 and the adjacent ends of the ingot mold, so that communication is had between the oppo site compartments into which the mold is divided by the insert. Wedge members l9 may be inserted between the ends of the insert I3 and the sides of the mold for holding the insert in its selected position within the mold. Such wedge members I 9, however, should not fill the entire space between the ends of the insert and the end walls of the mold, thus preserving the communication between said two compartments so that the poured metal will seek a common level throughout the entire mold.

The solidified ingot is removed from the mold I and rolled upon its twoopposite sides lying in substantial parallelism with the laminations therein, the rolling being more pronounced upon that section of the ingot disposed toward the right in Fig. 1 in order that the resulting blankwill be of uniform thickness as shown in Fig. 2. Upon, examining Fig. 2, it will be noted that the three laminations l3, l1 and I8 have their proportionate equal thickness upon their left end substantially preserved during the rolling op eration. At the right end of the resulting blank shown in Fig. 2 it will be seen that the two lower laminations are of substantially the same relative thickness as they were prior to rolling, and that the upper lamination remains of greater thickness proportionately than either of the lower two. Each lamination is flattened more and more as its right end is approached, whereby laminations l3 and I! are made to taper toward the right and the amount of taper of lamination I8 toward the left is materially reduced. After the ingot has been rolled, the edges may be trimmed therefrom to give it a finished appearance and usableshape.

When a laminated metal blank as shown in Fig. 2 is made into a plow mold-board, the thicker section of lamination ill will be disposed so as to provide that section of the mold-board adjacent to its lower leading-edge. The moldboard will then have a thicker area of hard steel at that portion thereof upon which the greatest wear occurs during use.

Although the present invention has been described as it is adapted to a process of making a. particular article of. manufacture from particular metals having different characteristics, it will be understood that the invention is applicable to the making of other articles from different metals having different characteristics, and that the process is not limited to the employment of an ingot having the exact proportions shown and described in the specification. I am aware that different tapers may be effected upon the various laminations either by changing the shape of the mold, by changing the position of the insert within the mold, or by applying the flattening pressure more pronouncedly over different areas of the ingot. It is intended that the invention be nowise limited excepting as set out in the appended claims.

I claim:

1. The herein described process of making laminated metal blanks, comprising the steps of forming a tapered laminated ingot including a preformed lamination ofsubstantially uniform thickness, a lamination tapering in thickness cast againstv one side of said preformed lamination and a lamination of substantially uniform thickness cast against the opposite side of said prebe steel becoming much harder upon solidifying.

formed lamination and rolling said ingot on opposite sides fiatwise of said laminations until said ingot is of substantially uniform thickness.

2. The herein described process of making laminated metal blanks, comprising the steps of forming a taperedlaminated ingot including a preformed lamination of substantially uniform thickness, a lamination formed of metal cast against one side of said preformed lamination, and a metallic lamination tapering in thickness cast against the opposite side of said preformed lamination, such sides of said preformed lamination being presented in a manner adapting welding thereof to the laminations cast thereagainst, and rolling said ingot upon opposite sides fiatwise of said laminations until the ingot taper is materially diminished.

3. The process of making laminated metal blanks, comprising the steps of forming a laminated ingot having angularly disposed opposite sides, said ingot including a. lamination of substantially uniform thickness preformed of tough metal and a tapered lamination of relatively hard metal cast against said preformed lamination, said laminations being arranged fiatwise with respect to such ang'ularly disposed sides of the ingot, and rolling said ingot upon such sides until they become substantially parallel and said laminations have become thoroughly welded together.

4. The process of making laminated metal blanks, comprising the steps of forming a laminated ingot having angulariy disposed opposite sides, said ingot including a. lamination. of substantially uniform thickness preformed of mild steel and a tapered lamination of relatively hard steel cast against said preformed lamination, said laminations being arranged fiatwise with respect to such angularly disposed sides of the ingot, and rolling said ingot upon such sides until they become substantially parallel and said laminations have become thoroughly welded together.

5. The process of making laminated metal blanks, comprising the steps of forming a laminated ingot including a lamination of substantially uniform thickness preformed of mild steel and a tapered lamination of relatively hard steel cast against said preformed lamination in a manner adapted to become welded thereto, said ingot having non-parallel opposite sides extending generally fiatwise of said laminations, and pressing said ingot upon such opposite sides until said ingot is of substantially uniform thickness.

6. The hereindescribed process of making laminated metal blanks, comprising the steps of forming a tapered laminated ingot including a preformed lamination of substantially uniform thickness, and a lamination tapering in thickness cast against said preformed lamination in a manner permitting of a welded joinder between such laminations, and pressing said ingot upon opposite sides fiatwise of said laminations thereby diminishing the taper of said ingot.

'7. The herein described process of making laminated metal blanks, comprising the steps of forming a tapered laminated ingot including a preformed lamination of substantially uniform thickness, a lamination formed of metal cast against one side of said preformed lamination, and a lamination tapering in thickness cast against theopposite side of said preformed lamination, said cast laminations being so related to the preformed lamination as permits them to become welded thereto, and applying pressure upon opposite tapered sides of said ingot generally flatwise of said laminations thereby diminishing the taper of said ingot.

8. The process of making laminated metal blanks comprising the steps of forming a tapered laminated ingot including a lamination of substantially uniform thickness preformed of mild steel, a lamination of relatively hard steel cast onto a side of the preformed lamination and a tapered lamination of relatively hard steel ,cast onto the opposite side of the preformed lamination, said cast laminations being so related to the preformed lamination as to permit them to become welded thereto and applying pressure upon opposite tapered sides of said ingot generally flatwise of said laminations whereby to diminish the taper of the ingot.

9. The process of making laminated metal blanks comprising the steps of forming a tapered laminated ingot including a lamination of substantially uniform thickness preformed of a selected metal, metal of different characteristics forming laminations cast upon opposite sides of said preformed lamination, at least one of said cast laminations being tapered, and thereafter applying pressure upon opposite tapered sides of said ingot generally flatwise of said laminations whereby to diminish the taper of the ingot.

10. The process of making laminated metal blanks comprising the steps of placing within an ingot mold having opposed non-parallel sides a selected metal insert of substantially uniform gauge in substantial parallelism with one of said mold sides and in spaced relation with both of said sides, pouring molten metal of different characteristics about said insert to form an ingot having non-parallel opposite sides, and applying pressure upon such non-parallel sides of said ingot in a manner deforming the ingot to cause such sides to approach parallelism.

11. The process of making laminated metal blanks comprising the steps of placing within an ingot mold having opposed non-parallel sides a mild steel insert of substantially. uniform gauge in non-parallel relation with at least one of said mold sides and in spaced relation with both of said sides, casting a relatively hard steel about laminated ingot including flatwise between the tapered faces thereof juxtaposed metallic laminations of which one is of substantially uniform thickness and the other is tapered and composed of metal having different characteristics, and applying pressure to the faces of said ingot in a manner causing such faces to become substantially parallel and expediting welding together of said juxtaposed laminations.

13. The method of making a substantially uniform gauge blank having therein metallic laminations having different characteristics and of selected varying thicknesses, comprising the steps of forming a tapered ingot including laminations corresponding to those of the blank, and applying pressure upon the converging sides of said ingot to compress the same until such sides become substantially parallel, and the taper of said ingot being so selected that during the compression thereof the laminations will become changed in shape and proportion to effect the laminations of selected varying thickness.

ROY C. INGERSOLL. 

